Searching for Home: The Establishment of the National Theatre of Scotland

Abstract

The National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) was established by an act of the Scottish Parliament on September 11, 2003. Scottish finance minister Andy Kerr proclaimed that the NTS would be based in Glasgow, but that it would not be defined as a single company or building. Instead it would be a commissioning body working with the help of Scotland's existing theatre companies to develop productions that would showcase the best of Scottish theatre to the nation and the world. Without a dedicated theatre space around which to build an identity, how will this new national theatre-commissioning concept work? My thesis traces the ways in which the concept of a "national theatre" has changed in Scotland over the past one hundred years, and how the shifting meanings and uses of the concept of a "national theatre" have served a series of initiatives to establish an independent Scottish cultural identity.